`Peacekeeper` Missile Faces Its Final Political Hurdle

Once a day, 365 days a year, the 23-year-old Carbondale, Ill., native and 39 other young Air Force officers set out on roads etched across this spectacularly barren landscape to man Papa One and 19 other missile-launch centers. Next year those centers will start receiving the MX, the weapon that will be the focus of a national debate in Congress this week.

Were a nuclear nightmare ever to come, Copeland and his colleagues in the 90th Strategic Missile Wing of the Air Force, upon an order from the President, would be among those responsible for turning a special key in the concrete-and-steel bunkers buried deep beneath the prairies.

Within seconds, a 110-ton lid would be blown from the top of a missile silo, thousands of tons of gas would eject the rocket and a thundering roar would herald the maiden flight of the ``Peacekeeper,`` a deadly and powerful 195,000-pound weapon that carries 10 nuclear warheads, each 20 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

To Copeland and his colleagues at F.E. Warren Air Base, the question posed by the MX, and the Minutemen missiles currently in silos, is a simple one: When the order arrives, will they turn the key?

If the answer were no, Copeland and the other officers would not be there. That is their response, and the response of the Air Force.

``I think about it a lot,`` said Lt. David Thomson, one of Copeland`s fellow officers. ``I don`t know where they are going or what will happen. If I thought I would hesitate on turning that key, then I don`t see any reason for even being here. I wouldn`t hesitate.``

But for the Congress and many other Americans, the questions posed by the MX are not that simple. More than any other weapon in U.S. history, the MX is a symbol of a perilous arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Reagan administration says the MX is vital as a lever in weapons-control talks to pressure the Kremlin into reducing its own bloated nuclear arsenal. Opponents say it is almost too good a weapon, one that would invite nervous Soviets to shoot first.

The vote in Congress focuses on whether lawmakers will free up $1.5 billion that President Reagan wants in order to build 21 MX missiles in addition to 21 approved last year.

But the vote really involves more than 21 new missiles; many insiders think that the political wrangling represents the last chance for opponents to kill or stop the missile.

If Reagan`s lobbying blitz for the $1.5 billion succeeds, they say, he will be well on his way to winning the $4 billion he is seeking in his current budget and the lion`s share of the $25 billion it eventually will cost to put 100 MX missiles in silos near here.

``These things have a shelf life as a public issue,`` said a congressional aide who has been involved with fights on the MX over the years. ``They are debated for a few years and then the arguments get repetitive and something new comes up.

``You had the B-1 bomber for a while, and now nobody talks about that anymore. After MX, it will be `Star Wars` (Reagan`s proposal to build a space- based defense against enemy missiles).``

Debates have raged on everything from the MX`s cost to where to put it. But Congress has been arguing about the missile for 12 years now. More than $13 billion has been spent on the weapon, including money that Congress approved in fiscal 1984 for the 21 missiles that will start being deployed in the 90th Wing at Warren Air Base next year.

To the top brass in Copeland`s ``Mighty Ninety,`` the Pentagon and the President, the congressional foot-dragging on MX money is baffling.

The Air Force says its first seven tests have far exceeded expectations for the missile. The chances of an accidental nuclear strike are remote, it says. Copeland and other combat-missile team members stationed at Papa One are well-educated Air Force officers subject to an elaborate system of checks and balances.

No missile can be launched until each of two teams gets a proper code from superiors that, in effect, cocks the hammer of the missile. Then Copeland and a partner about 12 feet apart must each turn their keys at about the same time to give the missile a launch ``vote.`` It won`t burst from the silo, though, until it gets another launch vote from a separate team somewhere beneath prairies of Wyoming.

So why, the administration asks, is Congress balking at providing more money? It approved $1.5 billion last year to buy an additional 21 missiles, but it said the money could not be spent until both houses agreed to release it in votes to take place over the next two weeks.

The administration argues that any more delays on the MX are foolish. Arms-control talks involve deals in which one side agrees to reduce certain weapons if the other side goes along with comparable reductions in its arsenal.